1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid ejection apparatus and a method of inspecting a cleaning apparatus thereof, and more particularly to a liquid ejection apparatus having a cleaning apparatus which wipes an ejection port surface of the liquid ejection apparatus with a wiping member, and to a method of inspecting the cleaning apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a liquid ejection apparatus, such as an inkjet recording apparatus, is known, which comprises an inkjet head (liquid droplet ejection head) having an arrangement of a plurality of nozzles (liquid droplet ejection ports) which eject liquid, such as an ink, in the form of liquid droplets, and which forms images on a recording medium by ejecting ink (ink droplets) from the nozzles toward the recording medium while causing the inkjet head and the recording medium to move relatively to each other.
The inkjet recording apparatus ejects ink from the nozzles toward a recording medium conveyed in the near vicinity of the nozzles, and hence the ink ejected onto the recording medium may be propelled back and adhere to the nozzle surface (the surface in which the nozzles of the liquid droplet ejection head are formed), a portion of the ejected ink may remain on the nozzle surface, and dirt, such as paper dust from the conveyed recording medium, may adhere to the nozzle surface. When the nozzle surface becomes soiled in this way, then ejection defects arise in that the direction of flight of the ink droplets ejected from the nozzles is bent, or the nozzles become blocked and ink can no longer be ejected from the nozzles. Therefore, in the related art, various methods are known for cleaning the nozzle surface.
For example, in the related art, a head cleaning method is widely used in which the nozzle surface is wiped with a blade (wiper) which is made of a soft material, such as rubber, thereby removing adhering material about the periphery of the nozzles. However, in this method, since the wiping is carried out while the blade makes contact with the nozzle surface, then the blade gradually wears or deteriorates. In the case of a blade which has suffered deterioration in this way, in addition to decline in the cleaning properties, depending on the circumstances, there are also possibilities that the nozzle surface will be damaged by the worn blade, and that the surface treatment, such a lyophobic treatment, on the nozzle surface, will be degraded.
In response to this, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-95881 discloses a cleaning performance identification device which identifies the cleaning performance of a wiping device including a blade member. The cleaning performance identification device is composed in such a manner that the cleaning performance is restored in accordance with the identified cleaning performance. In particular, an abutting pressure determination device is provided which determines the abutting pressure between the ejection surface and the blade member. By measuring this abutting pressure, the amount of wear of the blade member is identified and the abutting conditions of the blade member are controlled accordingly.
However, the technology described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-95881 determines the abutting pressure of the whole of the edge portion of a blade member; therefore, while it is able to judge decline in cleaning properties due to overall wear in the edge portion of the blade member, it is not able to determine slight partial changes in the shape of the edge portion of the blade member.
On the other hand, if the edge portion of the blade member is worn locally, creating, for example, a wedge shape, due to a solid body attached to the nozzle surface or the step difference in the edge or the counter-bore sections of the nozzles, or the like, then the cleaning properties of the nozzle surface decline markedly since it becomes difficult to wipe the nozzle surface with the worn portions of the blade, hence producing stripe-shaped unwiped regions on the surface in these regions.